The Bully
by 90TheGeneral09
Summary: S12E23: Lost Boys. The story of one of the boys who went after Luke Harris at school, and told him to "go back to Iraq" the most.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

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 **May 4, 2015**

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This was going to be a bad day.

Luke Harris just knew it; he could just tell. So many mornings he just had a sense that nothing really good was waiting for him at school, and so many times he'd been right. It hadn't always been that way; he'd made it through most of the fall semester without too much trouble. Luke was in the 7th grade; the second of three years he was expected to spend at James Fenimore Cooper Middle School, part of the Fairfax County Public Schools, serving the area Luke lived in with his foster parents- David and Wendy Harris of Great Falls, Virginia. Up to midway through his 5th grade year, Luke had been having a pretty good time at school and a pretty good life.

That had changed abruptly when somebody at school figured out first that Luke was a foster child, which brought on some insults and mockeries, and then that he was of Arabic descent, which brought more. When word spread that Luke and his 'real' parents were from Iraq, a nation that had been associated with many strong feelings and opinions as the United States waged a counterinsurgency war there from 2004 to 2011. Yet even with the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops by 2011, the instability and violence in that troubled country had not ended. The rise of ISIS, a new development in the continued threat of Islamic terrorism, was steadily drawing the U.S. back in. Everybody seemed to have an opinion on Iraq and the war there, and more than one kid at school thought the Iraqi people themselves were the enemy, or that all Muslims were.

So when word got around Luke Harris was an Iraqi, he became increasingly stuck with the label of "the enemy". He saw heads turn as he passed students standing by their lockers in the halls; eyes were narrowed in suspicion. Rumors that Luke Harris was packing a bomb or a grenade made the rounds and became very popular with some of the students. Kids would ask Luke when he was going to join up with ISIS, or what he planned to do with the many kids who sensed Luke didn't like them when his "ISIS buddies" took over Virginia. The label of "terrorist" made Luke an increasingly freakish outcast, and in the world of the middle school student, very few labels were worse for you socially- or harder to get rid of- than "freak", and "terrorist" was an especially bad version of that. What was amazing was that as time passed, nobody among the student body seemed to really care whether Luke was actually a terrorist or not, or how he felt about ISIS. No one even asked him.

And if Luke ever tried to argue, tried to insist that none of the things being said about him were true, he was laughed at, mocked, and sometimes literally shouted down. Nobody wanted to hear what he had to say about any of the labels he was being stuck with, or the nasty rumors some of his classmates so gleefully spread. The few attempts Luke made at telling any teachers or administrators did no good at all; on the occasions where he was even believed, the bullies he named simply denied everything and little to no action ever got taken. Telling his parents was more helpful; they were caring and supportive, and did what they could to make Luke's home life a good one. But they could not be there when he had to face those kids in the halls, the classrooms, gym class, the cafeteria. They had called the principal and met with Luke's teachers, but that had gotten the same result as when Luke had tried it.

Worse yet, after trying to go to the adults numerous times, Luke had more than earned a new label in the eyes of his peers: "snitch". When that stinging mockery began to be flung his way, Luke gradually slackened off his attempts at reporting the bullying directed at him, and before long gave it up entirely. It just wasn't worth it. Reporting any of the trouble made for him just earned Luke even more.

Luke kept up appearances as best he could at home. His foster parents cared, and they showed it all the time, in even the littlest of things. They didn't micromanage or coddle him, but merely cared a great deal and didn't mind saying so through words and actions. They were consistent, and unlike too many of the kids at school, David and Wendy didn't seem to care at all that Luke was of Iraqi descent. David had even been in the war at some point; Luke had seen the cased triangular-folded flag, the display case holding a set of ribbons and shiny silver badges the teen didn't recognize, and some commemorative coins for DESERT STORM and IRAQI FREEDOM in David Harris' office in the Colonial-style, two-story house the Harrises owned in Great Falls. But David never talked about it. He just remained firm in his expressed opinion that the Iraqis were not the enemy, that only a select few of them were as members of Islamic terrorist groups, and that people tended to think in terms of stereotypes and generalizations, unfortunate as that was.

It was better not to worry his foster parents, if Luke could avoid it. They didn't need to deal with this while they both tried hard at managing their own careers. This was Luke's problem. He had already tried every means he could of asking for assistance, and though Mom and Dad had begun taking him to a therapist last fall, and that had helped some, it didn't help enough. Nothing helped enough. Luke was on his own. Even his increasingly lengthy, increasingly-daring forays into the depths of the internet only did so much good. Luke came home every day now and did all he could to forget about the cruelty of kids he didn't even know by retreating a little further into his own world… but he still had to face those kids at school the next day. Some days were better than that; some were even quite pleasant. But the bad ones were always waiting, and a day could start out okay and then turn bad on short or no notice. It was even worse, somehow, that they almost never laid a hand on him.

Luke had learned to act more in the past two years than he'd ever imagined he'd need to know; to keep his parents from trying to help him and, as he knew from experience, only making things worse, Luke had to make them believe things were getting better- or at least not getting worse.

But they were. They were getting worse.

To keep Mom and Dad from knowing that, Luke had slowly but steadily learned to put up walls, hide things, keep the worst of what was happening to him from his parents. He controlled his expressions and his tone of voice as best he could, and when he had to lie, he learned to lie in such a way that at the moment he said it, Luke believed the lie himself.

It helped. Some. At the very least, Luke was achieving his goal. But success was often mixed, because his foster parents were pretty perceptive. They cared, and their love only made Luke want to hide the living hell he was experiencing in middle school from them even more. If they only knew the full depth of what he was going through every day, the stress of merely knowing what might be waiting for him when he so much as got on the bus, they would storm the school all by themselves and be in the principal's office the next day. Dad especially.

Luke wasn't even sure what service he'd been in, but Dad had the tough-as-nails, always loyal and constantly faithful, responsible and disciplined manner the stereotypical veteran was perceived to display. Dad would have eaten any of the adolescent tough guys who made fun of Luke so mercilessly at school for breakfast, but Dad could not take them on himself. Luke had to do that on his own, and had resolved to. It was a problem he was stuck with. Nobody could do anything about it. These days, his primary focus was on staying below the radar as much as possible, on getting by and waiting out the last of his days in middle school. Soon enough it would be over… after one more year. And this one wasn't done yet.

The dark-haired boy did his best to stay upbeat at breakfast, and accepted a bear-like hug from his father and a gentler but equally caring one from his mother before heading out the door and down the street to the bus stop. The kids there mostly ignored him, which was usually what happened if they didn't directly pick on him. Luke had few friends. He had tried to make some, and managed to keep a few, but most students seemed to want nothing to do with him. Even other downtrodden and outcast students generally avoided Luke, maybe thinking that they could still outrank him in the social pecking order if they shunned the "terrorist" as well.

The bus ride was unremarkable. He had some balls of rolled-up paper thrown at him by some snickering boys further back in the bus, but Luke just stayed still and let them do it. He had learned by now that if you turned around, you would never be able to spot your tormentor in time. Even if you did, they would just deny it if you tried to tell the bus driver, turning it into a game of who said what. The boys throwing the paper balls snickered as they did it. They knew Luke hated it, and wished they would stop. But they went ahead and did it anyway, enjoying the fact that they were getting a reaction out of him and he continued to do nothing to them in return.

They tried something new as the bus finished the last of its rounds and was heading in towards the middle school; one, then two, pieces of tin foil rolled up in a narrow, pointed cone were zipped like darts at the back of Luke's head. He gasped in pain and slapped a hand to the back of his head, and now he did turn around.

Nothing. The rear quarter of the bus' load of kids just stared out the window, back at him, at their notebooks or iPods or whatever they were doing before Luke turned around. After a few seconds of staring around, wishing for once he could see who it was with his own eyes, catch someone with a ball of paper still in their hand, Luke gave up and turned around.

Some kids snickered.

Then, right as the bus came to a stop at the bus ramp at school, a point when Luke was usually home free for the morning bus ride stage of things, another ball of paper smacked him right behind his left ear. An exposed edge of the rolled-up piece of paper gave Luke a paper cut on his ear, and this time several kids laughed.

As Luke got up to finally get off the bus, he realized, far too late, that someone had put ketchup on his seat and it was all over his khaki shorts. It was hard to believe he hadn't noticed before, but Luke figured they had just known not to use too much. Just enough to smear his shorts good, but not enough to really soak through and make him notice. Luke waited to be one of the very last off the bus, as he often did. He didn't want anyone to try tripping him or something like that.

Yeah. Today was going to be a bad day.

 **XX**

If there was anything Luke hated besides middle school and the numerous cruel, judgmental kids in it, it was P.E. class; physical education. It was a glorified 45-minute jock-show-off period, a block in which the boys who hated Luke the most could mock him most cruelly, and the girls who thought skinny, shy, nervous Luke Harris was a joke could laugh at him louder than ever. Luke had already become well used to associating PE class, and indeed sports of any kind, with embarrassment and humiliation, so he did as little as possible, stayed off to the side unless forced to do differently, and then left the minute class was over. His bullies knew he didn't enjoy this class, and took pleasure in his eagerness to leave.

Worst of the bunch was a boy he'd been putting up with since last year. He wasn't the tallest, strongest, or richest kid in school, but he was confident and talkative, and played soccer and ice hockey with great determination. He was into weightlifting, running, playing around with his friends and asking out girls. He was a cadet staff sergeant in the school's Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps unit, and delighted in mocking Luke every chance he got. Luke hated PE class in no small part due to the attention devoted to him by this boy, and English and Math, Geography and History were made so much worse by knowing that PE was waiting come 5th Block, right after lunch.

Luke sat by himself in the cafeteria. Once he got his food, he stayed with it until he was done; more than once Luke came back and found somebody had stolen his food, knocked it on the floor, or thrown it in the nearest trash can.

Zack Owens came by and dropped a heavy geography textbook right next to Luke's tray just before lunch ended. The noise made Luke jump, as it did every time, and he hated how he couldn't stop that natural startled reaction the way some kids seemed able to do. It just scared him a little, that was all. He couldn't help it.

"Score one for the Corps!" Owens crowed, and Luke looked up to see the taller boy, muscular if on the lean side, grinning down at him, a few of his buddies with him.

"Please stop that," Luke said, trying to sound reasonable. The sandy-blond-haired boy with the buzz cut and Marine dress blues on- it was Monday, dress blues day for the JROTC kids- laughed and looked at Luke as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

"Please stop that. What, is that an order?"

"I'm asking. Just- just please stop. Okay?"

But Owens was now doing one of the other things he loved doing; starting a conversation with Luke like this and then suddenly having better things to do. The older boy was brushing some fuzzy piece of lint off the red-bordered, gold-colored, sewn-on staff sergeant's stripes he wore in his dress uniform- a uniform that he wore as a walking rebuke to the all-too-many JROTC students across America who only took it so seriously. Owens took wearing a military uniform damn seriously, and it had been said more than once that Owens was actually trying to wear his Marine JROTC uniform with the exact standards of a real Marine, and wasn't doing too bad at it, either.

"What?" Owens said, seeming to snap out of his reverie as he brushed at his right arm. "Oh, you said something. Cool story, brah. You should tell it at parties. See you in five minutes, loser."

With that reminder that PE was up next for both of them, Zack Owens laughed again and headed on his way, his friends chuckling alongside him.

Luke didn't find any of it funny. But what he thought was and wasn't funny meant very little around here these days.

 **XX**

Like some cruel god of fate had specifically targeted Luke this year, the locker for gym class that Luke was given was directly across from Zack Owens'. He'd gone unnoticed, miraculously, for the whole first week. Luke had even gotten to listen to the other boy bitch about how much he disliked his full given name, Zechariah, but how he was stuck with it since his parents loved it. The professed dislike for his full first name seemed a little forced, though; it was hard for Luke to put his finger on it, but that was how it sounded to him. There was almost an undertone of pride, too- Zack Owens tended to sound proud when he talked about anything to do with his family. Regardless, Luke's grace period ended at the end of that first week, when Owens came back from the showers and saw Luke closing up his locker, and put two and two together. Luke had been ripe for public humiliation in the locker room ever since.

 **XX**

"Hey, hey," a cheerful, mocking voice called out as Luke headed through the crowded locker room and towards his locker. He felt so awkward and self-conscious in here; his shoes felt like cement. They got even heavier when he heard that voice. Sure enough, Zack Owens was grinning at him, halfway in the process of getting into his gym uniform. He always took his time getting the shirt on.

"Hey," Luke answered- not like an actual response was required.

"Tanner and Josh and me were just talking about that fucking kid who blew up that bus in D.C." Owens paused, making sure his audience was listening in. "I figured you knew him."

"I don't," Luke said.

"What? Stop _mumbling_ , dude," Owens snapped.

"I said I don't know him."

"Really?" the sandy-blond-haired boy replied, surprise all over his face. "I mean, from the sound of things he was a fuckin' loser, and he was a terrorist, so I thought you and him must hang out a lot. You two have so much in common."

A bunch of the boys cracked up laughing; Owens grinned and chuckled, slapping palms and bumping fists with some of his friends.

Luke just went over to his locker, doing his best to ignore the derisive hoots and jeers when he started to change. Somebody came up behind him and yanked down his underwear, prompting more laughter and mocking jeers.

Face burning with shame, Luke just reached down and pulled his briefs back up. "Ignore them," school authorities said in those generic talks about bullying. But that only did you so much good. Lay on enough humiliation, kids knew, and they'd get to you whether you reacted or not.

"Nice one, man," Owens said in tones of clear approval, addressing whoever had done it.

"Better be careful," a boy said. "He's gonna bring a bomb to school tomorrow and kill us all."

"This kid couldn't even _carry_ a bomb. He can't bench ten pounds," Josh Grace replied.

"I can bench two hundred," Owens boasted.

"No, you can't."

"Bull-shit."

"Hell yes, I can," Owens insisted. "Listen! Anybody wants to see me do it, come hang out with me at the Y after school." He paused. "Oh, but junior ISIS members aren't invited. That means you, Luke. You should just go back to Iraq, you know? Maybe there somebody will actually like you."

Luke let them laugh, let Zack Owens grin savagely at him; the 8th grade boy was really enjoying this today. Luke thought about the new friends he'd been making online. He'd told them about Zack, and SS_BUILDER-48 had made this really amazing speech in the chat room about how bullies like him were the worst kind of oppressors. They were tyrants, and one day, they would answer for their crimes as surely as Mussolini and Hitler had in the past. "Zack," SS_BUILDER-48 said, "is going to pay in full for his immoral crimes. One day soon he'll regret how he's treated you. They all will."

The teenager had been wavering about whether he really wanted to sign on with The Calling; in spite of how lousy school was, they wanted him to not just reject his teachers, but his parents. And Luke knew his foster parents loved him. From the day he'd arrived in their house they'd treated him as their own.

But like a sign from God himself, here was Zack Owens, an agent of the liars and the oppressors, a bigoted and mean-spirited bully, urging Luke to just go ahead and do it. Join up. Break the chains that age, the enemy of enlightened youth, had already placed on him through the adults in his life- including his foster parents, as caring as they seemed.

Luke was a pleasant enough boy, but he had his limits, and the last two years of increasingly-miserable life at school had frayed his nerves considerably. He spent the rest of the time in PE class today wondering what The Calling might do to Zack Owens if Luke joined up and proved himself to them.

Zack, overconfident and brash, had no idea how close he was to the truth by saying Luke and Bradley Simek had a lot in common. They did. They'd talked in the same chatrooms several times, and when Simek had blown up that bus and killed himself, Luke had been watching from a safe distance. He'd seen it. Bradley had shown not only his own courage and resolve, but the kind of work they did in The Calling. It was an all-or-nothing outfit. Luke wondered what SS_BUILDER-48 had in mind, coming from such a group, for people like Zack Owens. It was actually getting to be a lot of fun imagining what The Calling was going to do to such people once they were finally brought to justice.

They played basketball on the outside court today; naturally, Luke got picked last. And as usual, the class took three hours even though it only lasted forty-five minutes.

 **XX**

Luke was able to get away with not showering because he barely did anything during gym class half the time. He didn't work up a sweat the way a lot of the boys did, giving it their all and showing off for the girls that were also in PE for this block. Getting to avoid the showers was great. If the time he had to endure in the locker room in general was embarrassing, the showers were humiliating. The mockery and laughter got much worse when Luke's whole scrawny form was there for everyone to see. He was not only a terrorist, but a pitifully small and unimpressive one.

Still, the day's embarrassment in gym class seemed to be over when the coach dismissed them and they headed for the lockers. Then, while he was getting ready to get changed, a boy's arm reached in front of him and slammed Luke's locker shut.

It was Zack Owens. Of course it was him. He was just back from the showers, his buzz-cut hair still wet, and he was actually pretty buff for a middle schooler, so the fact that he looked _really_ pissed off made Luke genuinely worried. Nobody had gotten very physical with him in their bullying before, but there was always a first time.

"Hey, 'Luke'. Did you hear me earlier? Go back to Iraq, man. You're just fucking around pretending you're an American. Just stop faking and go back where people actually want you."

"I am American," Luke answered in a small voice, trying not to be intimidated and not doing very well at it. "I live here just like you-"

"Uh-uh," Owens interrupted, shaking his head, gray eyes staring hatefully at Luke. "Don't you _ever_ say you're like me. _Ever_. You realize how much money my country has spent kicking the shit out of your country's army in two wars? Trying to rebuild your loser army and protect you stupid fucks for ten years? You realize how many _good people_ have _died_ in your shitty little country because we got suckered into going there to save stupid little kids like you?"

"Zack, come on-"his buddy Josh said, sounding a little uncomfortable at the heat coming into Zack Owns' voice. But Owens just smacked Josh's hand away when his friend tried to set it on his shoulder. "Shut the _fuck_ up, Josh."

The guys in the locker room started to quiet down. Zack Owens was not the biggest or tallest kid in the room, but he was one of the fittest, and when he got angry he sure was the meanest. It was dawning on Luke that Zack Owns was not just angry today; he was pissed off.

"Can't you just leave me alone?" Luke asked, aware that hurt and pleading was in his voice, on his face.

"Can't you just get outta _my country_?" Owens shot back, keeping a hand against Luke's locker as he leaned on it, leaning in and glaring at him. "You people have said that you are literally going to _kill us all_ if we don't do what you say, and you keep fucking _moving_ here and expecting us to act like you. This is _my_ home, you fucking camel jockey- not yours. Muslims and Americans don't mix. You get that we've brought four _thousand_ Americans home in bags because of you fucking rag heads?"

Luke started to look around, having this sudden, crazy, desperate desire to ask any number of the bystanders on this little scene for help. So many boys were watching, so many could see or at least hear what was going on. Yet none of them did anything, and some even seemed to approve. And in any case, Zack Owens dealt with Luke's diverted attention swiftly. He grabbed Luke's chin and jerked him back to looking straight at Zack.

"Nah, nah, nah, man, don't look at them," Zack admonished, shaking his head. "They're not your buddies. They won't help you. They're sick of you just like I am. You get it yet, kid? This whole country _hates_ you."

Helpless and small, Luke said nothing. He trembled with rage, burned with shame. Zack Owens was saying all this stuff that Americans weren't supposed to believe in, and no one was saying a word or raising a hand against it. Gradually, Luke noticed that while some expressions of boys looking on were approving, most were anxious, or simply gave away nothing at all. Many of them didn't seem too sure what to do. They were uncertain, so they did nothing. Somehow that was worse than if they'd all been plainly on Zack Owens' side.

Suddenly Zack Owens was shouting. "Dragging us halfway around the world, interrupting our lives- what the hell were you people _thinking_? We spend _ten years_ training and fighting for you people; _what thanks to we get_? ISIS! Fucking _ISIS_! How does _feel_ , Luke, knowing you assholes got half my family killed for _nothing_?"

Zack's two buddies grabbed him at exactly the right moment; the taller boy was visibly losing control, and was in fact taking a swing at Luke when Tanner and Josh grabbed him.

"Let me go!" Zack yelled. He twisted and fought, but they held onto him. Zack never took his eyes off Luke as he shouted, and he became increasingly hysterical as they started to hustle him out of the locker room, headed for an exit door. "You got some _nerve_ , kid! You got some _nerve_! _You fucking towel head_!"

The boy shouted some more, but he was crying as much as yelling by then, so not much of what he said made sense. He'd made his point, though. Soon after Josh and Tanner got him around a corner and out a door. When it closed again, cutting off Zack's profanity, the locker room was dead silent.

A door banged open, and Coach Richardson stormed in, looking around.

"The hell's going on here? The hell was all that racket?"

He glared around, staring hard at each of the boys.

"Nothing, Coach," a boy said after a few moments. "Just, you know, a little argument."

"Oh, yeah?" Doubtful, but thinking about buying it.

"That's all it was, Coach," another boy said.

"Talking about sports, you know, sometimes, people get a little mad. It's good now, though."

Coach Richardson listened to all that, still looking around. He glanced at Luke a few times, but didn't say anything. Finally, he started to nod. "Okay. But keep your voices down next time, guys." He shook his head. "Sports arguments, yeah. Those'll get a man's temper up."

Nobody said anything to contradict that, not even Luke. Coach left, Luke changed and got the hell out of there, and while most of the boys were glancing at each other or whispering, wondering what the hell had got into Zack Owens today and where his two best friends had hurriedly dragged him off to, they all seemed to have lost interest in bothering Luke. They were too confused by everything to resume laughing at him like they usually did.

As far as Luke was concerned, then, whatever had made Owens get hysterical just now was essentially a good thing. Maybe he'd even get through the rest of the day without being picked on anymore.

Maybe.

 **XX**

Josh and Tanner wound up being very glad they'd thought to grab Zack and get him out of there when their friend suddenly lost it in the locker room after basketball. They didn't like Luke Harris or kids like him either, but Zack had been especially gleeful about going after Luke today, and suddenly, the glee had turned to anger, and then hysteria. When they got Zack outside through a fire exit door whose alarm had never worked, the boy was alternately crying miserably and shouting furiously. It took them five whole minutes to calm him down.

Zack hated the Middle East and everything to do with it. His father, his father's brother, his older brother, plus no less than three of his many cousins had died during the fighting with and in Iraq, and he'd lost another cousin in Afghanistan. The effect this had on Zack was to make him loathe both countries and anyone from either of them; as far as he was concerned, the whole War on Terror was their fault.

The Owens family was a Marine family; nearly every male in his family, living or dead, had been in the Marine Corps for the past one hundred and fifty years. Zack both loved and hated the family legacy. It was more or less assumed that he would be joining the Marines himself when the time came, and while he'd never said he intended not to, it weighed heavily on Zack sometimes.

"What the hell got into you, man?" Josh asked, wide-eyed.

"You frickin' lost it, dude!" Tanner exclaimed. "Come on, what's eating you? If it's a guy, let's go kick his ass."

"Dude. It's obviously Luke Harris."

"Then let's go back in there and fuck 'im up. Never liked him anyway."

"I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry." Zack's chest hitched, and he buried his face in his hands. "I'll be okay."

"What's going on, Zack?" Josh asked. "Come on. We just want to help."

"David's birthday is today. I had a dream last night that he came home and he was _all right_. I was so _happy_. Then I woke up and he's just fuckin' dead." Zack stood there a few moments, gazing miserably at nothing. "I miss him." His chest hitched a few more times, and he wiped at the tears rolling down his cheeks.

Captain David Owens had died on his own birthday while deployed in Baghdad in 2010; five whole years ago. His death had hit Zack even harder than his father's death at the hands of a sniper in 2009 had, because at least when he'd lost his dad, he still had David. There hadn't been any such consolation when David's luck ran out the next year. Now, it was down to him and his mother.

Josh, who had lost the oldest of his three elder brothers to a Taliban mortar in Afghanistan, more than sympathized. And Tanner, whose father had spent several years in Iraq and Afghanistan before getting promoted and posted to the Pentagon, certainly understood. Not all of the kids from military families, or families who'd otherwise lost members in the War on Terror, saw things the way these three boys did. Josh, Zack and Tanner had all come to see the Muslim-dominated nations of the Middle East as the enemy until proven otherwise, and the same applied to everyone who lived in them. To these three, it was a cut-and-dry issue, and their dislike for Muslims, Arabs, and anyone else they lumped in with Islamic terrorism was influenced by and rubbed off on other kids their age here at school. After more than a decade of war with an Islamic extremist enemy, they were far from the only Americans who tended to see anyone who was from the Middle East and not an Israeli as a potential foe at best. And some of them weren't so sure about the Israelis.

"So, that's rough, man. Bad dreams, huh?" Tanner said sympathetically.

"No, good dreams," Zack replied. "It got bad when I woke up." He cleared his throat, further composing himself. "Listen, I'm fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm good."

"Hey, guys," Josh said suddenly, looking at the other two boys. "You know what I think'll help? I bet we can get that Harris kid real good. I mean, really get the fuckin' point across that nobody likes him, you know?" He looked at the boy with the sandy-blond hair, who was straightening up and drying his eyes. "You up for some action, Zack? We're already skipping class at this point. We can make it count for something."

"If it's about Luke Harris, you bet I am," Zack said. His voice was gripped with anger again, and the fire was back in his eyes. "But how are we gonna get him?"

Josh grinned. "Let's get changed back into our dress blues. First things first."

Once they'd gone back inside to the empty locker room, quickly changed, and got out of there, Zack's status as the highest-ranked of the three JROTC cadets- Josh was a corporal and Tanner a lance corporal- soon asserted itself. For a boy who was normally well-behaved, Zack knew a remarkable amount about how to be smart while you were up to no good, and rarely had the three of them been caught while Zack was in charge of the mischief.

But Josh had proposed the idea in the first place, and kept smugly insisting the other two boys needed to wait. Finally, after all three of them narrowly managed to duck into a bathroom- a girls' bathroom- to hide from the vice principal as he headed down the hall, they made it around the next corner and stopped at locker 277.

"So what the fuck have you got for us, Josh?" Zack demanded. He was inwardly embarrassed at his outburst earlier, and determined to protect his macho rep if he could, even among his best friends. "You sure kept us waiting long enough."

His eyes darted around as he glanced left and right in the longest hallway in the school. It started at the two-roomed cafeteria and ended at the bus ramps, running the length of the building. The upside of this was that if their little prank worked, everybody would see it. Everybody. The downside was if the chances of being seen were higher than usual because of the sheer number of directions a teacher or custodian or administrator could come from.

"Chill, brah," Josh said, that smug smirk back on his face. He got on one knee, quickly unzipped his backpack, and took out two paint spray cans- red and black- and two bottles of Aunt Jemima syrup.

"Dude." Tanner stared, and then blurted, "You had this _planned_!"

"Yeah, you know I did," Josh agreed. He held up the red can and shook it, tossing the black one plus a syrup bottle to Zack.

"Why do I get a fuckin' syrup bottle?" Tanner protested.

"Because I only got two cans and two bottles," Josh replied.

"That little rag head _freak_ made me look like an _idiot_ in front of _everybody_ ," Zack hissed, staring at the locker hatefully, like it was Luke Harris himself. "I bet he thought it was funny. I'll show him something funny. Let's _do_ this, guys."

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 **A/N: This chapter was uploaded on 2-19-2017. The second chapter of this story will be uploaded on 2-25-2017.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Luke knew the day was finally over. It had to be. He was on his way to 7th Block, for Chrissakes, and that had been a quiet point even on the worst days. Even with the way Zack Owens flipped out at the end of gym class, Luke was pretty sure he'd be able to end the day without any additional drama. He could just go to his locker and get his books for woodshop class, last one of the day, and then he'd be out of here. He wanted to get home and get back on his computer. He needed to talk to SS_BUILDER-48 again.

The main hallway, 200 Hall, was the most crowded hallway in school whenever classes let out, because it was the best way of getting just about anywhere, and over a hundred kids had lockers along this hall. Normally, though, the crowds were moving, for the most part. Traffic flowed in two directions, just like with cars on a street. There was nothing like that here today; a huge crowd had gathered halfway down the hall, ringed around a single locker.

"Damn. You see that?" a boy said to his friend.

"Holy shit."

"Who's locker is that? Somebody must really hate that kid."

"No way are they gonna get this off."

"Not unless they repaint the whole locker."

"And the two next to it. Some of the paint got on the ones next to it."

"No shit, genius."

"Yeah, well, it ain't my locker got sprayed."

Luke got a deep feeling of dread in his stomach as he approached the crowd. His locker was in this direction. In fact, it was right where the crowd was gathered. It might've been hard to push his way to the front of the crowd with so many kids standing around, but Luke was a small, quiet boy, easily ignored. If Luke wasn't being actively mocked, he was dismissed. He'd heard things that students would've never allowed him to hear, but more than once, a conversation had been held with Luke nearby, and the participants talked as if Luke were not there. They didn't even notice him. So Luke slipped through the crowd and got up front pretty easily. He knew what he should expect. He knew it was his locker. But what he saw when he made it through to the front of the crowd and the vandalized locker came into full view shocked Luke still.

It was indeed his locker, 277. Somebody had trashed it. The lock was intact, but its metal, gray-painted door had been turned mostly black and red. A skull had been crudely sprayed up top in black paint, and beneath it was a pointed message in black and red, alternating between lines:

GO BACK

TO IRAQ  
SAND  
NIGGER

"Ha! They mean _that_ kid!" a boy pointed and laughed, and he got the giggles. More did as Luke walked forward- slowly, as if in a daze- and for the first time noticed the pool of liquid on the floor in front of his locker. He reached down, touched it. It was syrup, the kind Mom and Dad loved giving Luke for his pancakes.

Luke fumbled with the Master Lock fixed to his locker; at first he could not open it. He couldn't remember the combination. The back of his neck felt like it was burning; behind him, he could hear kids whispering and snickering.

He got the door open just as somebody threw an apple at him. It was fresh, so it felt like a damn rock when it smacked into Luke between his shoulder blades. "Go home!" a boy shouted. Several girls and girls laughed or snickered.

Luke spun around; a whole hallway of students stared back at him. He scanned the faces, searching for the guilty one. He couldn't tell who it was. Maybe it was Zack Owens, but as much as he'd been after Luke today, he was far from the only one who went out of his way to make things difficult for Luke. Any number of kids could've done this.

Some students looked amused, even with Luke staring at them. A number had their phones out now, and plenty had them out when Luke showed up. They were taking pictures of the locker. Others looked more shocked than amused; many had doubtless never seen it go this far before. A few kids looked sympathetic. Most just stood there, like they weren't sure what else to do.

No one came forward and said, "Dude, this is fucked up." Nobody said, "Luke, I don't know who did this, but the rest of us aren't stuck in 1956." Not one student came up to Luke and said, "I feel bad for you. Really. This was wrong."

No one did anything.

Then a small 6th grader with messy red hair pointed past Luke and said, "Dude, look in your locker, man!"

Luke spun around, and actually saw the inside of his locker for the first time since the vandalism had been done to it.

The papers, books, binders, notebooks, and supplies were all where he'd left them. They hadn't gotten into the locker; nothing had been disturbed. But a whole bottle of syrup looked to have been poured inside through the vents. So much, in fact, that it had pooled at the bottom and leaked out of the space between the frame and the bottom of the locker door.

Everything in this damn locker was ruined. And the guys who did this knew that was gonna happen. That was the whole point.

Anger pulsed in Luke; hate ran through his veins. He wanted to scream. The syrup was on everything, in everything. Whoever had done this was really not messing around. They'd had some hate in their hearts, too.

The textbook and notebook he needed for class were covered in the damn syrup, but they were replaceable. They weren't even what Luke was looking at.

It was a small box, cardboard, part of something Dad had ordered on Amazon a while ago. Luke had liked the little box and he'd kept it. Two months ago, he'd found the cricket on the floor in the locker room, just as gym class ended. It had just been there, hopping around on the tiled floor. Luke had panicked, knowing that soon the other boys would show up and kill the cricket, either by deliberately taking aim at it if one of them noticed it, or by simply crushing it in the stampede.

The dark-haired boy had saved it. He had scooped it up and hidden it in his locker, changing out of his gym clothes faster than he'd ever done before. He'd managed to get out of there quickly, carrying the cricket in his pocket. Then he'd managed to hide it and bring it all the way home, where he put some air holes in the box and kept the cricket in it. Luke had learned what to feed the cricket, and at the end of every week- and sometimes during the week- he would bring the box home and let the cricket hop around some, inside or outside. For two months, that cricket had become his pet and his friend. Every day, Luke would look at the box when he stopped at his locker, making sure the other kids never got a chance to see it, or guess what was inside.

The syrup had pooled on top of the box, going straight inside.

With trembling hands, Luke picked up the wet, sticky box, opening the lid. He didn't want to look. He knew what he was going to see. But he opened the box anyway, slowly lifting the lid.

The cricket had died when the syrup poured in through the air holes, catching it in place and then cutting off its air. The one secret Luke had kept, the one thing he'd had to look forward to every day, that cricket, was gone. Luke wished he could save it, but he knew there was nothing he could do.

It was dead.

Luke spun around, eyes flashing, once again searching for the culprit. He was pissed off now, and finally, he felt like he could take on whoever was up for it in a fight. Zack Owens was the one he hoped he'd see in the crowd. He knew Zack and his friends had done this. The kids around him all stared back, wary of Luke, eying him like he was dangerous. An animal that would bite if you didn't keep your distance.

"Calm down, man," the 6th grade boy said.

"Yeah, seriously, dude. It's just a locker," another boy added.

"The hell's in that box, anyway?"

"Just let it go," another boy called out. "They're never gonna find who did this anyway."

Luke didn't say anything. He turned around, slammed his locker door shut so hard the metallic bang echoed at either end of the hallway. His trembling fingers dropped the lock twice, but he got it back on and clicked it into place as Principal Jeffords started down the hallway, telling everybody to break it up, break it up.

The dark-haired teenager abruptly decided to flee. He had no desire to stay here any longer. The principal's perfunctory sympathy and the inaction that would follow, the more genuine sympathy of his parents- none of it would change anything. If Luke stayed, he would just see more of this. Probably worse than this, too. He had to leave.

The box still firmly in one hand, Luke shoved his way through the crowd, rounded a corner and darted down the stairs towards 300 Hall. He was out of here. He was gone. It was time to sign up and go fight for the people who actually gave a damn. He'd seen enough of the opposite around here.

 **XX**

There was no time to wait for the bus; Luke walked home, and really, he pushed that pretty close to running. He had to move fast. They would call his parents soon, and before long, somebody would figure out he'd skipped the last class of school.

Luke unlocked the front door and raced upstairs to his computer. The second it was up, he got on the trail for the new chatroom, and before long he'd found it. Signed on as LukeLighthouse_XT, he joined the ongoing conversation between Joker23495, TheHound8893, ClimbTheBranch, and SS_BUILDER-48. They were talking about "B" and the action he'd taken recently. It took only a few moments to realize they meant Bradley Simek and the bus bombing.

"r u guys seeing this? Its everywhere," typed Joker23495.

ClimbTheBranch added, "unbelievable. I'm watching 2"

"B did his job well," SS_BUILDER-48 wrote. "He did what was necessary. Oppressors will have to sit up and take notice."

"I'm here I saw it", Luke hurriedly typed.

"L welcome. Where have you been?" SS_BUILDER-48 answered.

"I went there," Luke typed in reply. "I went to where you said."

"u went there/" ClimbTheBranch wrote, and Luke somehow felt he could just sense the jealousy in that.

"I didn't know we could go," Joke23495 added, and there was _definitely_ jealousy in that.

"I wanted L to be inspired," SS_BUILDER-48 replied. "He needed some inspiration. I'm glad you went, L. I wasn't sure you had the courage. You've made me proud. You're showing your loyalty, and it isn't going unnoticed, my brother."

Matty43334 came on and asked, "what did u c?"

"tell us everything L," ClimbTheBranch said.

Luke spent a few precious minutes obliging them. Then he began to write about some of what happened today at school, but unlike before, he was careful not to name any names. But they knew who he was talking about all the same. The other chatroom members started urging Luke to see this as final proof that The Calling was for him. Luke's heart was racing; he was both incredibly excited and terribly afraid. What was he supposed to do about this? Was he better off staying, or going?

SS_BUILDER-48 spoke persuasively, as always. Luke had wanted to meet this guy in person for a while, though he wasn't sure if he'd ever get the chance. "Builder" was smart as hell, and Luke and the other chatroom regulars loved reading his flowery, eloquent speeches and exhortations to fight for freedom with all that you had.

The others weighed in too, reminding Luke that he had little to lose if he gave up his current life and everything to gain if he joined them.

Back and forth they went, and Luke began to feel his resolve to stay here anymore weakening. His parents were going to hear about his locker getting vandalized. They were going to hear that he had skipped 7th Block and left school. Chances were he'd wind up getting dragged to the principal's office, both to get a lecture about not skipping school, and to snitch on Zack Owens, who would then take savage vengeance on Luke from now to the end of the year… and maybe beyond, if they wound up at the same high school down the road.

Finally, Luke put it to "The Builder" in one question: "If I leave now, I can't go back?"

"This is your time, brother. We talked about this. Come aboard with us and I promise you won't wanna go back. Do the steps we talked about. We're at the building we talked about. You've come this far. Come a little farther and you can join us"

"Your brothers will be there waiting. Show me you're serious and you're in."

Luke thought about it for almost a minute before he answered. "Okay," he typed. "I'll go."

After accepting some congratulations and assurances he was on the right path, Luke signed off. He put on one of his favorite songs, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" by Fall Out Boy; while it played on repeat, Luke ruthlessly and quickly destroyed his room. He didn't own much, but what there was, Luke shredded or smashed. He got out a pocket knife and stuck it into his mattress, pillows, and comforter, tearing it all to pieces.

The whole process took about five minutes. When he was done, Luke sat down and pulled a spiral notebook from his desk. This was the hardest part, and not just because he was getting increasingly tense; he'd been here much too long already, and any minute now, as lousy as today had been, his parents were liable to come home and catch him.

But in order to demonstrate his loyalty, he had to give up his old life. Luke needed to not just depart from his life as it was now; he had to reject it. He had to condemn those who were not aligned with The Calling's ideology, especially those close to him.

That meant his parents. Luke had no one else.

They were always good to me, Luke thought. And not just his parents, actually; he'd met some of the rest of the Harris family- uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins- and they had all accepted Luke as one of their own without hesitation.

How was he supposed to write a note damning them all and just disappear?

 _You said you were in_ , Luke reminded himself. _You can't quit now. You have to do this_.

So he got out a blue Papermate pen and started to write.

 _Dave and Wendy,_

 _I won't be calling you Mom and Dad anymore. I'm leaving to be with a family that understands me. I'm not coming back you won't hear from me. The life I had with you was fake I hated it. I wish it never happened you're the same as the evil oppressors who hate me and call me names. You're one of them. You don't understand who I am, so I don't want anything to do with you anymore. You aren't my parents. You're nothing to me. I don't_

Luke abruptly sat up and took in a sharp breath; tears filled his eyes, and a sob escaped him. He dropped the notebook and the pen, and had to take a whole minute to get himself under control. The dark-haired teenager seized the notebook where it lay on the floor, savagely throwing it into his backpack. He had shut off his school-issue laptop, the one he'd so freely surfed on once he found a good VPN to use and did a little work to unlock some of its systems, and thrown it somewhere. Where was it? Luke knew he should have destroyed it. He was nearing panic now, almost hysterical. He was almost exactly divided between staying and going, and it dawned on Luke that he better go or he'd lose his nerve.

Maybe he hadn't gotten to the things under his bed, but Luke had destroyed everything else pretty well. He'd hacked away at the doorframe, desk, the wood bed frame, the closet doorframe, and anything else he couldn't outright smash to pieces with his knife. Who even cared if a few random things were left under the bed? The Calling would be satisfied with what was done already. Luke knew he was supposed to finish the note to his parents and leave it behind.

He couldn't do it. Luke tried to make himself take the notebook and finish it, but he just couldn't do it. He shoved it in his backpack and zipped it back up.

Luke didn't know what was happening at school. He didn't know what would happen with his parents. They'd have no note to read; Luke couldn't bear to leave the one he'd been ordered to. He'd just have to hope The Calling didn't find out about that. As for the kids at school- as for Zack Owens, anyway- Luke personally hoped The Calling killed him. Chances were that wouldn't happen, but if anything happened to Zack, Luke wasn't going to complain. In the mood he was in right now, he'd gladly have killed Zack himself.

Taking a final look around his thoroughly-trashed room, Luke wondered again if he wasn't betraying The Calling by not leaving the note. Not even finishing it, in fact. No, if they found out and demanded to know why he'd failed to do that, Luke would just deal with it then. Luke didn't have any doubt, as he surveyed the room, that the damage he'd done here would be enough for The Calling. They'd be satisfied with this.

Then Luke shouldered his backpack and he got the hell out of there.

He had one last thing to do before he joined up, and just enough time to do it. Luke would take the cricket to the place he had planned to release it at the end of the school year, at the local park, a mile from his home. The cricket had died because of him. Had Luke just released it to begin with, back when he first had the chance, it would still be alive.

He owed it a burial, at least, a final goodbye. Luke, the boy who had not a friend in the world besides The Calling, decided he could not live with himself if he didn't pay his respects to this cricket before he went. The cricket had never tried too much to escape him, had always seemed to stay still and calm when he held it in his hand. It was as if, sensing Luke's gentleness, that he meant it no harm, the cricket responded accordingly.

If so, that trust had been misplaced. Zack Owens and his friends hadn't killed the cricket. Luke had killed it. And as he left his foster home forever, Luke took a trowel with him, snatching it from the garage, from a bucket of gardening tools.

The one thing that had given him hope, the one thing that had carried him through the day. Luke had let Zack Owens take even that from him. One day… maybe one day he'd get Zack for this. For now, he had to hurry to the tree, the big oak tree, that stood over the park on the hill. Luke had visualized releasing the cricket there so many times, could see it so clearly in his mind.

It was good that Luke had been able to arrange that he'd be picked up near there. At least, before he left his old life for good, Luke could make some apology, say goodbye to his friend.

Luke had a feeling he was never going to understand why any of this had to happen. There was so much cruelty with no point.

 **XX**

Zack sat on the steps at the back of his old elementary school, staring out at the baseball field. Looking at it, but not really looking at it. He was just staring. When your eyes were open you had to pick something, and the baseball field would do since no girls in short-shorts were in view.

"So, Zack," Tanner said from beside him, "Matt texted me about Luke Harris."

"Well?"

"Kid freaked out when he saw his locker. He fucked off and nobody's seen him since. Didn't show up for his classes the rest of the day."

"So what?"

Josh shrugged uncomfortably. "Well… he's just saying it looks like we got 'im good."

"So what?"

Tanner wanted to sigh in frustration, but stopped himself. As he'd just seen today, Zack got _mean_ when he was mad, and cutting in when he was all moody and introspective like this was a good way to get him angry. Out of this trio, Zack was in charge, and losing his shit in PE today didn't change that. But it was frustrating nonetheless when he got like this. When Zack was in this kind of mood, you could tell him a prank had succeeded, a plot for revenge had played out perfectly- hell, you could tell him that The Bomb was going to be dropped, and Zack would sardonically reply, "So what?"

"Maybe we got rid of him," Tanner said hopefully. "You know, that's the point. Look, I get that you hate him, man. Well, maybe he'll shut up from now on, stay outta the way. Or maybe he'll transfer to another school or something."

"Maybe." Zack nodded, as if in thoughtful approval. Then he cracked a smile. "We did get him good today."

"Yeah," Josh agreed, relieved Zack was finally showing some signs of life after sitting here for thirty minutes.

"Hell yeah, we did," Tanner said enthusiastically.

"You guys got a cigarette?" Zack asked. He deftly produced a black Zippo from his pocket, emblazoned with the Marine Corps logo.

"Dude," Josh said with mock concern, "they give you cancer."

"If they looked as dangerous as they are, you'd run like hell," Tanner added, also seeming grave.

"So what? I'm gonna die in the Middle East anyway." Zack held out his hand, not even turning around. Tanner handed him a Camel, handing one to Josh and taking a third for himself.

"You serious, man? Who says you're gonna die in the Middle East?" Josh asked.

"Family destiny, man."

"Not everybody in your family who's served has died over there."

"Enough have." Zack lit his cigarette and handed the lighter off to Tanner, who handed it over to Josh.

"Maybe you'll go over there and kill like a hundred rag heads, and you'll come back and get all the pussy," Tanner suggested.

"All the pussy, Tanner?" Zack asked, taking in a drag, letting it out. He sounded genuinely amused now.

"Oh, yeah, man," Tanner nodded eagerly. "All of it."

"Can't believe I lost my shit like that today," Zack said; now he sounded like he was talking to himself. "I can't do that again. Marines don't do that."

"Your rep's good," Josh assured him. "Everybody knows that Luke Harris is a fuckin' douchebag."

"You say that he spazzed out?" Zack asked. "He saw our work?"

"Yeah. He totally freaked out and left. Nobody's seen him since he found his locker."

"Did the administration like what we wrote? It's very PC, guys. I think it's definitely "in" right now."

The three teenage boys had a good laugh over that one. They partly were giving The Finger to the whole wide PC world with GO BACK TO IRAQ SAND NIGGER. It was their way of saying what they really thought of two things: political correctness and fake Americans from the Middle East. Today had been flipping off two birds with one finger. Beautiful.

"I bet we're gonna get dragged into some dumbass assembly tomorrow," Tanner mused. "Some kinda 'Everybody needs to be tolerant and understanding' horseshit."

"It won't make any fuckin' difference," Josh declared. "All the real American kids can't stand jerkoffs like Luke Harris. Administration can't make us do shit."

Zack nodded, pulling the smoke in, breathing it out. "Fuckin' terrorists. We'll get 'em all someday."

"Damn right we will," Tanner agreed.

"Fuckin' A," Josh agreed.

"Thanks for looking out for me today, guys," Zack said. He hated himself for showing weakness, for breaking down, however briefly. He was going to have to toughen up, no matter what. But he also appreciated his friends.

"No problem."

"We got your back, man." Josh hesitated, and then added, "Look… you wanna talk about your brother… I mean, we'll listen."

Zack knew they would. He didn't need to ask for friends, or prospects for maybe getting some action this weekend. What he did need, what he wasn't getting, was an end to the pain. Dad was dead, David was dead. So many family members he'd grown up adoring were gone, having given everything to Corps and country. And the others who could've helped him were always deployed overseas or stationed at some base far away, only able to see Zack a time or two a year. Zack knew that getting rid of Luke Harris wouldn't change anything. He'd still miss the people he missed, and hate the ones he hated. There'd be someone else pissing him off at school tomorrow, and then someone else once Zack ran him off.

The goddamned Middle East. It was a fucking meat grinder. Good people went in one end, flag-covered coffins came out the other. All the war did was turn the handle. But that was how it had to be, so long as there was a battle to win somewhere. One day, Zack looked forward to doing his part. For now, he'd have to just make life hell on the kids who were just faking at being Americans.

There were times- brief, traitorous moments- when Zack hated the Marine Corps far more than he hated Iraq, more than he hated Luke Harris and everyone like him. The Corps had forced him to live a Spartan existence growing up, living in one crappy house after another as his father's career as a Marine officer dragged the family from one base to the next. Zack had become outgoing and confident early, making friends quickly and enthusiastically, knowing always he would lose them soon. Taking Dad, his older brother, his cousins, and handing back cased flags and medals.

Tormenting kids like Luke did not put an end to the pain, but it did ease it, even if it was only for a short while. A brief respite from the agony, from the bad and good dreams featuring his dead relatives, from the pain of knowing they'd done it all- given all- for him as much as anyone else… even a brief respite from that was worth it. Doing all this let Zack vent his anger and gain temporary relief from his pain. Set against that, what was Luke Harris, anyway? He could go fuck himself.

He didn't belong in this country. None of those people did. Zack sometimes wished things could be different, but some peoples, cultures, and religions just did not mix. It was how things were, how they'd always been. Zack couldn't change that. Nobody could.

But determined to be tough, stoic, to bear all his burdens- as much as possible- on his own, Zack kept these thoughts to himself. He trusted Tanner and Josh with his life, but didn't need to bother then with every thought that entered his head.

"I know. Thanks," Zack said, nodding again. He took in a long, deep drag, then let it out slowly. He looked up at the sky. It had been sunny, but now it was becoming gray, overcast. Probably gonna rain. "Semper Fi, motherfuckers," Zack said to nobody in particular. "Faithful to the Corps."

"Semper Fi."

"Semper fuckin' Fi, dude."

"Nice," Zack said in approval. He took one last drag from his cigarette, then tossed it away. "You guys wanna play some COD at my place?"

"Sure."

"Why not?"

"All right." Zack stood up. "Now let's get outta here before somebody sees us."

* * *

 **A/N: The middle school I have Luke Harris and my OC, Zack Owens, attending is a real one. Other than its location, however, I know absolutely nothing about it. This is not any sort of comment on what life at that public school is really like.**

 **I set the story on May 4, 2015, one day before the episode I set this story in aired. It was mentioned by David Harris when he spoke to Gibbs that a particularly bad incident happened with Luke the previous day, and he came home and "destroyed his room" before disappearing. Since NCIS sets its episodes more or less in the present day, I went with that here.**

 **The name Owens refers to two things. First, struggling yet promising Marine recruit Private Owens, a major character in the plot of the 1957 movie** _ **The D.I.**_ **, starring Jack Webb as Technical Sergeant (addressed at times as Gunnery Sergeant or Gunny, and wearing the insignia of that rank) Jim Moore. Second, the 35-ton light BattleMech, the Owens, from the BattleTech universe, centered on the tabletop game. Since Private Owens comes from a Marine family, I sort of went with this idea that since he successfully becomes a Marine in the film and carried on the family legacy, maybe descendents of him and any siblings or cousins did the same.**

 **Zack Owens, fairly or unfairly, has more or less decided to blame the Iraqi people and to an extent all Arabs/Muslims for the losses his family has suffered in the wars America has fought since September 11, 2001. He associates so much pain with Iraq and with the Middle East that he hates that region and everyone who's from there.**

 **To a degree, Zack may even feel fatalistic- that the war will go on long enough to draw him in and quite possibly get him killed in Iraq, and he is angry that it all has won no easily definable victory so far. He is still dealing with a lot of pain from losing close relatives in the War on Terror and has allowed that pain to turn into resentment towards fellow students of Arabic and Middle Eastern descent. Zack also believes Muslims cannot be Americans, stating the two "don't mix". Like a lot of people who are prejudiced he is *very* certain he is in the right.**

 **However, also like many people who are prejudiced, Zack Owens is not some soulless psychopath, either. I condemn bullying in all its forms. Bullying is putting someone else down on basis of popularity, looks, physical strength, race, religion- you're picking something out about them and trying to make them feel low and small. Bullying is not "making men", nor does it "serve a purpose". There is not a single useful lesson that can be learned from bullying. It doesn't "toughen you up", and the proper response from adults is not to simply say the kids subjected to bullying need to be tougher. We do not need a society of victims, where everyone is a winner regardless of merit. But we do need a society with compassion, with decency, with humanity and honor. Bullying is acting without those things. Whether it is done to intimidate subordinates in the workplace or "show them who's boss", or done in school for popularity or out of personal insecurities or prejudices, it is wrong. No one ever needs to "be the bully" to succeed or get somewhere in life.**

 **Zack Owens bullies Luke Harris harshly, as shown from this one day at school, and while he has some humanity in his skewed reasons for it, I don't at all mean to suggest that all bullies have this behind their actions or anything like it. Zack dehumanizes his victims, like Luke, while he treats those he sees as equals fairly. More than one real school bully is probably that way.**

 **My point is that not every bully has some problems at home or inner pain. Some just choose to behave that way. Some have sociopathic traits, some are showing off for friends, some are just jerks. There isn't any justification for bullying. Even if Zack Owens has pain that drives him to target kids at school like Luke Harris, what he is doing is still wrong and very at odds with the ethics and traditions of the United States Marine Corps. Many alpha males and bullies wind up in the Marines, attracted to its warrior culture, but that does not mean that what they stand for is what the Corps stands for.**

 **Zack saying "So what?" in that bored way and the description of it is based off Archie Costello in** _ **The Chocolate War**_ **by Robert Cormier. His line "Semper Fi, motherfuckers" is inspired by Sarge in the 2005 film** _ **Doom**_ **. Detective Bobby Monday from the 2012 film** _ **Premium Rush**_ **is referenced both in some dialogue and in Zack Owens' manner as he intimidates Luke Harris in the locker room.**

 **The "If cigarettes looked as dangerous as they are, you'd run like hell" line is directly referencing a commercial discouraging underage smoking that I've seen a few times. It may be slightly anachronistic, since it may have first come out after the airing of the episode this story is set in, but I kind of liked the idea of this adult-made PR campaign reaching a couple of members of its intended audience and then completely failing to make the intended impression, as these things often will. Even so, you can't blame 'em for trying.**

 **UPDATE: I would also like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story so far: earthdragon, VG LittleBear, DS2010, and TheNaggingCube, the last three of whom have all reviewed my work in the NCIS universe multiple times now. I am appreciate of any reviews for my work, and one of my favorite things about the NCIS section of this site is that it is actually one of the site's most active and any work you post is almost guaranteed a review or two- a rare thing on this site.**

 **In addition, I want to thank VG LittleBear for their constructive criticism- rightly and justly given- about Chapter 2. I made further modifications based on that, adding the cricket. I hope it doesn't come off as rushed; it was actually emotionally hard to write as I worked to added it into the story. It amazed me how easily this addition fit into the story, like it wasn't so much being added as it was filling a hole in the plot that had been there before. I based the cricket off a short film I saw once.**


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